A Nouwen Network is a ‘grassroots’ nonprofit outreach and receives no financial support from any organization. All activities are entirely voluntary.

The material presented is assembled in good faith. Links to other websites are inserted for convenience

NOTHING CONTAINED ON THE WEBSITE IS INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE, NOR SHOULD IT BE CONSIDERED, MEDICAL ADVICE OR TO SERVE AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN OR OTHER QUALIFIED HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.

Developed with the Church of England and NIMHE, this tool provides information on mental health and its promotion and protection within congregations and the wider community. The resource focuses on how faith communities can be welcoming to people with mental or emotional distress, as well as learning from their experiences and benefiting from their contributions.

The two core principles are to provide the opportunity for people within the Christian and other faith communities to reflect on mental health and what it means for each of their members; and to use the increased knowledge and understanding of mental health to create a safer and more welcoming environment for all people, whatever their mental health needs.

SEE this section: WORSHIP ON THEMES OF MENTAL HEALTH. (Pp.58-67)

WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY - 10 OCTOBER 2011 -WORSHIP RESOURCES.

“Please feel free to use these resources as you require. An acknowledgement in your service sheet or during your worship would be appreciated. We would also appreciate any feedback that you may care to make, to enable us to see if resources such as these are helpful and would be welcomed in succeeding years. If you feel able to offer us your comments about on these resources, please contact Revd Cathy Wiles at:

Extract from: Promoting mental health: A resource for spiritual and pastoral careNB: The complete, comprehensive document can be downloaded for free from this link:

Worship on the theme of mental health can be organised at any time of the year. Many faith communities plan events to coincide with World Mental Health Day, which takes place on October 10th each year. When planning a service, try to:

Involve those with personal experience of using mental health services and/or carers in the planning of the worship and encourage them to share ideas for theme and content.

Encourage service user participation in the service e.g. playing, singing, reading, prayers, drama, particularly of their own composition.

Invite a user or carer to preach the sermonTry to have someone speak at the service about his or her own experience. This could take the form of an interview.

Each Christian community will have its own texts, music and traditions to draw upon,but the following selections provide a starting point.

SERVICE FOR HEALING AND WHOLENESS

CONDUCTING WORSHIP SERVICES FOR HEALING AND WHOLENESS

All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. (Julian of Norwich, 14th Century)

WORSHIP services of healing and wholeness are increasingly being offered in congregations of the United Church of Christ. In early findings from the recent “Worshiping into God’s Future” survey, approximately 30 percent of United Church of Christ clergy have conducted at least one healing service during the last two years. In a powerful way, these services bridge a chasm that sometimes exists between what we do in worship and the yearning for healing and wholeness present in our day-to-day lives. Such services seek to honestly present our brokenness and suffering before God to receive God’s abiding care, compassion, healing, and reconciliation.

Persons bring a range of needs to such services. Some bring bodies ravaged by disease or injury. Some courageously long to be healed from the deep wounds of abuse. Others present themselves weary of the cycle of addictions. Others desire to give over the torment of psychological depression, emptiness, and fear to God. Longing for forgiveness, many no longer can bear a wrong or broken relationship. We come to such services seeking healing in our bodies, our lives, but also wholeness in our families, our congregations, our communities, and our world. We seek God’s shalom, justice, healing, peace, and compassion. We desire, as suggested in the quotation from Julian of Norwich, to be anointed, to be touched, to be healed “where all manner of thing shall be well.”

This issue of Worship Ways is intended to include guides and ideas for such services. Please also draw upon the “Order for Healing for Use with an Individual” and “Order for Healing for Congregational Use” included in Book of Worship: United Church of Christ, pages 296 through 320.

The ideas here and in Book of Worship are offered with the hope that careful preparation will be taken for any such services. Spiritual guidance and discernment, as well as medical and psychological counsel and treatment, may all be essential gifts of God’s healing.These services are intended to complement such gifts, to prayerfully hold those who seek God’s healing through those gifts, and to encourage all those to rest in God, who promises to be with us in all circumstances (Romans 8:35–39).

NOT ALONE WORSHIP RESOURCES

There is a range of resources here for you to choose from. The stories, information and worship resources have been put together by a group of people involved in leading worship or connected in various ways with promoting mental health. Bible notes and prayers are by the Revd Michaela Youngson and the dramas by the Revd Andrew Brazier.